Is it safe to come out and say the games 'industry' is a poor sequence of jokes (gimmicks, sequels, clones, DLCs, and other riff-raff)and that our only salvation lies with kickstarters, indie games, mod teams, and other upstarts?

To the gaming "industry": Industry is the problem, not the solution. The industry has adopted the bullshit Hollywood model of pumping out garbage after garbage (yay more sequels and clones!) while additionally nickel and dimming the customer with $10 patches packaged with malware (DRM) and bloatware that nobody wants. This is ruining gaming.

Thank the gods for the Internet and indie games. Developers should understand by now there are only two ways of making a living developing games:

1) Sign away your rights, games, and ideas to middlemen who lost their reason for existence over a decade ago while gambling on a archaic business model that has shown countless failures. Hopefully all the PR stunts will turn a profit for the game and make up for the eventual layoffs of your friends/co-workers and the fact you worked 60 hour weeks for a $60 "AAA" title that will be featured in the bargain bin in a month.

2) Ditch the parasites, self-publish, and make a quality game that rises above the sea of gaming garbage. Since you don't have to appease inept corporate overlords and the almighty profit margin, one can produce twice the quality at a fraction of the cost, and all the while still leaving your dignity intact! See "Minecraft" as an example on how this model works.

If one wants to make money on the Internet one must understand the environment. Since anything you put into 1's and 0's becomes virtually and infinitely abundant, "intellectual" copyright and the cute notion of claiming ownership over non-scarce goods has died its well deserved death. Sorry Mr. Old Guard Developer if you came up with the idea first, but copying and sharing is not theft. I cannot be "stealing" if I am not depriving anyone of their property first, and virtual (non-scarce) goods do not count sorry buddy.